The Scorpion King

Gilgamesh, overcome with a combination of grief and fear—mostly fear, it seems— sets out through his lands and beyond, in search of the Gods who, it’s rumored, can bestow immortality. His persistent complaints and laments don’t follow him: they lead him forward into the dangers he’ll brave in order to attain his goal.

There are times in this saga when it seems that Gilgamesh believes he can complain his way to immortality; and perhaps on this point at least we have more in common with him than we think we do.

We meet our very bitter and (as we shall come to see) desperate hero Gilgamesh here as he reaches the edge of the great mountains that separate him from the shore where he will (he hopes) find a vessel that can carry him to Uta-Napishtim.

But in his path stands the skeptical and inquisitive Scorpion King.

The Lyrics are freely adapted from translations; imagery and substance are largely consistent with the epic, but given the (appropriately?) epic scale of Gilgamesh’s laments, aggressively edited for brevity.

The Scorpion King

I wander 
Through the wilderness
My tears as bitter 
As gall from oak 

Twin peaks high above me
Guard the rising sun
They touch the sky
And plant their roots deep in stone

And scorpions whose eyes are death,
Stand at the gates
Their light fills mountains

And the fear of death
Is my heart
As I approach them.

The scorpion king
Turned to his wife and said
In Gilgamesh is the flesh of Gods
And she answered him
With a very keen eye
“Yet Gilgamesh is one-third human”
  
How did you walk the road that leads here?
And achieve the dangerous passage?     
How did you make your way 
Into my kingdom?   

Where are you going?
What reason is there 
In your life
Why are you here?

I seek the path  
To Uta-Napishti
Who found eternal life
In the arms of the Gods

He can tell me the secrets
Of life and death.

The scorpion man
Had a golden tongue
And he said to Gilgamesh:
There was never a man like you
Two-thirds a God
But none have ever passed 
Through the mountains

There lies   darkness      
A total void of light   
For twenty-four hours
With no way of looking back

Six hours in the darkness
Twelve hours with no light
Eighteen hours in the darkness
  
Gilgamesh braved the darkness
His first trial of death 
After twenty two hours.         
There were just two hours left
 
And finally he walked out into the sun
And the world was full of light    
There stood the tree of Gods       
with leaves of carnelian and hematite
Growing by the sea

And the innkeeper Shiduri
Drew a veil across her face
Against this wild and foreign spirit
Who had wandered here 
From some godforsaken place